Emoji Picker Not Working on Windows 10/11 — Win + . Click But Nothing Inserts [FIX]
3If your emoji picker opens with Win + . but clicking an emoji does nothing — no paste in Notepad, no emoji in Facebook — this guide will fix it.
We’ll restart the right services, refresh text input, and if needed, apply a registry tweak to re-enable emoji support on Windows.
Steps in this video:
1️⃣ Restart Text Input Service
Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager
Find CTF Loader under background processes → right-click → End Task
Press Win + R, type ctfmon.exe and hit Enter
2️⃣ Make Sure the Service is Enabled
Press Win + R, type services.msc
On Windows 11 → find Text Input Management Service
On Windows 10 → find Touch Keyboard and Handwriting Panel Service
Set startup type to Automatic → click Start
3️⃣ Test in Supported Apps
New Notepad, browsers, or chat apps work fine
Older programs might not support emoji input
4️⃣ PowerShell Refresh
Run PowerShell as Administrator
Paste: "Get-AppxPackage Microsoft.WindowsInputExperienceHost | Reset-AppxPackage"
📝 Remove inverted comma ""
5️⃣ Registry Refresh (for stubborn cases)
Open Notepad and paste:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Input]
"EnableHexNumpad"=-
"InputMethodEnabled"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Text Services\Install]
"InputMethodEnabled"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Input\Settings]
"EnableExpressiveInputShellHotkey"=dword:00000001
"EnableExpressiveInputEmoji"=dword:00000001
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Input]
"EnableExpressiveInputShellHotkey"=dword:00000001
"EnableExpressiveInputEmoji"=dword:00000001
Save as TextServicesRefresh.reg (Save as type: All Files)
Double-click to merge into the registry
Restart your PC
Now your emoji picker should work anywhere it’s supported.